THE U.S. AT THE CLIMATE SUMMIT – WHY IT CAN WORK

The U.N. Convention in Copenhagen 101; What You Need to Know in Advance of the International Climate Change Summit
Rebecca Lefton, Andrew Light, Kari Manlove, Daniel J. Weiss, December 7, 2009 (Center for American Progress)
and
Myth vs. Reality on International Climate Change Negotiations
Rebecca Lefton, Andrew Light, Daniel J. Weiss, September 22, 2009 (Center for American Progress)
and
Ten Reasons for Farmers to Support Action Against Global Warming
Jake Caldwell, December 2, 2009 (Center for American Progress)

SUMMARY
A paper from the Center for American Progress (CAP), the Obama administration’s favorite think tank headed by Obama transition team leader and former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, says there are 4 reasons for a hopeful attitude toward the Copenhagen UN summit: (1) The U.S. has already laid the groundwork for negotiations; (2) The big emitting nations are ready to cooperate; (3) Existing policies have put the world on the right path; (4) International cooperation in the fight against global climate change will be good for everybody’s economy.

The CAP paper’s authors earlier presented a perceptive list of 9 myth-busters on why the facts support expectations of progress at Copenhagen. The essence of the facts is that (1) this is one world, (2) the developed and developing nations all have to live in it, (3) the means of beating climate change are at hand in the form of New Energy, Energy Efficiency and a cap&trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) and provide a marketplace though which the caps can be profitably met, and (4) most of the key players at the international summit have demonstrated they realize the community of nations can either (a) profit from transitioning to a New Energy economy together or (b) swim for it individually, clinging to their precious sovereignties as they go down.

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In a separate but vitally related paper, CAP Director of Policy for Agriculture, Trade and Energy Jake Caldwell offered a set of rationales for rural America’s endorsement of participation in an international climate agreement. His point is simply this: What’s good for the climate – in the form of doing agriculture, livestock and land management in a way that maximizes protection of GhGs and minimizes production of GhGs – is good for the farmers’ bottom line because they can profit like bankers by providing offsets, leasing their land for New Energy installations and reducing their energy bills.

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COMMENTARY
The basics of the climate summit have been debated for at least months and, in some cases, years. Many believe the world community is too entrenched in divisions. The Center for American Progress (CAP), as intimates with the Obama West Wing, could be basing their confidence that the divisions will be overcome in part on inside information about the last few months’ shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Chief Climate Negotiator Todd Stern. Nevertheless, they open their case that success at Copenhagen is within reach with domestic arguments.

(1) The U.S. has already laid the groundwork for negotiations. This groundwork consists of:
(a) a clear provisional target for GhG reductions of 17% below the 2005 level by 2020, the first such U.S. goal. This is expected to challenge other laggards in the international community.
(b) The 2009 budget and the 2009 stimulus bill combine to represent the biggest ever U.S. investment in New Energy.
(c) New U.S. vehicle fuel economy standards, established by Presidential executive order in the Spring, also indicate to the international community the Obama administration is serious about GhG cuts.
(d) Another executive order put GhG limits on federal agencies that must be met by 2020.
(e) The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just formalized with an endangerment finding (see MORE NEWS below) its right to control GhGs under the Clean Air Act (CAA) if Congress does not pass a climate bill limiting them.
(f) Having passed the House, that climate bill is on track for passage by the Senate in Spring 2010.
(g) A jobs bill to alleviate current unemployment woes is expected to fund further New Energy and Energy Efficiency infrastructure.

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CAP’s next 3 arguments are based on insights about the rest of the world.

(2) The big emitting nations are ready to cooperate:
(a) China has announced a hard target for reduced emissions intensity (40%-to-45% less GhGs than 2005 per unit of GDP by 2020). It is not an absolute emissions reduction but it is China’s first concrete GhG commitment and China has agreed to some form of verification.
(b) India will reduce its GhGs per unit of GDP 24% from the 2005 level by 2020. This follows its announced intention to build 20,000 megawatts of solar capacity in the coming 2 decades, the world’s biggest solar commitment.
(c) Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa have followed with commitments.
(d) Japan, South Korea, Australia, the European Union, and other countries have increased their targets.

(3) Existing policies have put the world on the right path:
(a) The announced policies of the 16 nations of the Major Economies Forum and the 27 countries of the European Union represent 65% of what is needed to keep the world’s GhG atmospheric cancentration at 450 parts per million. (350 ppm would be better, as 350.org has made clear, but this is a start.)
(b) Although the U.S. federal policy is in limbo, held hostage by recalcitrant fossil fools, individual regional and state policies are already at work cutting GhGs. Even if a federal policy is stymied, the U.S. will cut its emissions going forward.

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(4) International cooperation in the fight against global climate change will be good for everybody’s economy:
(a) International big business sees that a Copenhagen agreement will boost the worldwide economic recovery. A CAP report to come at the summit says existing proposals in the U.S., UK, Germany, Nigeria, South Africa, India, China, Australia, and Brazil would produce a total of 19.7 million jobs, job growth that will accelerate and multiply as more countries transition to New Energy and Energy Efficiency.
(b) A stimulus bill smart grid technology expenditure of $4.5 billion is expected to create 278,600 U.S. jobs during installation, and 139,700 of these would be ongoing. 138,000 more U.S. jobs could come if an export market evolves as other countries build smart grid technology.
(c) Another CAP report predicted a U.S.-China carbon capture and sequestration technology collaboration would create an additional 403,000 jobs in the U.S., and more aggressive deployment could create as many as 943,000 new U.S. jobs by 2022.

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Earlier in the fall, CAP’s advocates listed 9 myths about why the climate summit could be expected to fail and corrected them, demonstrating there is ample reason to see something substantial coming from the conference.

Myth 1: The U.S. should not set targets because China and India won’t. Reality: Both China and India, as explained above, now have hard targets for cuts in emissions intensity and are building New Energy and Energy Efficiency infrastructure with both hands. Also, China’s vehicle fuel economy standard (36.7 miles per gallon) is tougher than that of the U.S. and they may move it up (to 42.2 mpg).

Myth 2: China and India will not commit to the international agreement. Reality: Both China and India are on record they will commit if it does not prevent the economic expansion they need for their massive populations. Both ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which the U.S. did not. Both are part of other diplomatic processes like the Major Economies Forum (MEF), and have acknowledged the MEF finding of the scientific validity of keeping the global average temperature at no more than 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial level. China has worked with the U.S. on many other initiatives.

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Myth 3: China, India, Brazil and other developing countries will not accept a binding GhG cap. Reality: Nobody knows for certain because Kyoto does not require binding caps from developing countries. Nearly 50% of Indians, 500,000 million people, do not have electricity. Hundreds of millions in China live in poverty. Entirely different obligations are appropriate. As they consume more, they will have to take on binding requirements. For now, hard caps and reductions in energy intensity, with verification, are key.

Myth 4: Developing country GhG cuts cannot be verified. Reality: Measuring, reporting, and verifying GhG cuts is still a challenge everywhere. China’s measurement, reporting, and verification mechanism is in place. Other developing countries are improving because it is a prerequisite for obtaining funding and investment from the richer developed nations.

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Myth 5: An international agreement will make the U.S. less competitive and it will lose jobs to developing nations. Reality: Domestic policies that drive the development of New Energy and Energy Efficiency technology will make the U.S. more competitive in the New Energy economy. If the U.S. fails to develop such policies, it will be doomed to become a New Energy importer. A Pew Center on Global Climate Change study showed a GhG cap would likely not cause more than a 1% drop in overall production. Similar studies foresee equal benefits for China. Partnerships are already forming, to each nation’s advantage.

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Myth 6: Copenhagen will be a failure if a final agreement is not achieved. Reality: Copenhagen is part of a process. A final binding treaty is not now anticipated because of the delay in the U.S. legislation. Negotiations, it is hoped, will result in an agreement of cooperation in principle between developing and developed countries on targets for GhG cuts and funding of mitigation and adaptation measures.

Myth 7: The U.S. is doing little about GhG cuts and being left behind by the other developed countries. Reality: If the Obama administration can push through the presently proposed legislation, a 17% cut from the 2005 level by 2020 and an 83% cut by 2050, it will be near enough the EU commitment to prevent the EU from self-preventively lowering its goals. A World Resources Institute study found ancillary provisions in the pending legislation (international forestry projects, industrial performance standards, energy efficiency measures, and international offsets) that could bring U.S. cuts to 23% below the 1990 level.

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Myth 8: Because Congress did not pass climate legislation, Copenhagen will fail. Reality: All the U.S. efforts (the House bill, the Presidential executive orders, the EPA finding and regional and state measures) are significant and will earn enough international respect at Copenhagen to make a provisional agreement possible.

Myth 9: The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is a failure. Reality: The EU ETS cap&trade system has a annual market value of $56.6 billion. EU emissions have been cut about 1% (50-to-100 million metric tons of CO2e) per year. It had early phase difficulties, successfully corrected, and then encountered difficulties during the global financial downturn but is again correcting. (See THE OVERSIMPLE STORY OF CAP&TRADE AND THE FACTS)

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The Caldwell piece on why it is in the best interests of normally conservative rural landowners to support legislation instituting New Energy and a cap&trade GhG-cutting system includes 10 points:

(1) The costs to agriculture of such measures have been exaggerated.
(2) Such legislation protects farmers and landowners from such forecasts.
(3) Farms, forests and pasturelands can be used to hold and sequester emissions.
(4) Farmers and landowners earn from selling “offsets” for emissions-cutting practices.
(5) Farmers and landowners will also have other incentives for GhG-cutting land management.
(6) Farmers and landowners can earn new income by leasing their land for wind, solar and other New Energy installations that very likely will be conducive to continued agricultural activity.
(7) Farms will produce a significant part of the future’s New Energy.
(8) The pending legislation has a safety net written into it specifically to protect rural families from higher energy prices.
(9) Development of Energy Efficiency measures will help farmers’ cut their electricity bills.
(10) The funding in the pending legislation provides for scientific research to identify future threats to rural lands.

In essence, despite thunderous objections from those at both extremes of the political spectrum, the potential to do good at Copenhagen is real. The outcome, being the product of boisterous mortals, will surely not be perfect. Yet the potential benefits of an international agreement to join together more closely in work to protect this good earth are inestimable.

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QUOTES
- From the Caldwell paper on benefits to farmers and landowners: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s preliminary economic analysis of clean-energy and climate change legislation concluded that in the short term, fuel prices will rise 0.3 percent and fertilizer costs will show little effect due to the bill’s assistance to energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries…[and this] does not include the potential benefits from the technological changes... In a recent report on the economic impact of global warming legislation the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that farmers will earn between $1.2 billion to $18 billion in annual benefits from carbon offsets. Another…predicts that farm revenue will grow by $13 billion a year from a well-designed carbon offsets trading system. That is real money funneled directly into farmers’ wallets.”

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- From the paper on myths: “The meeting in Copenhagen is part of a process for structuring an international agreement, not the end of it. The same was true for the Kyoto Protocol. The Copenhagen meeting will be the 15th meeting of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Success at Copenhagen would be the adoption of architecture for a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Accord that commits countries to greenhouse gas reductions. Final numbers can come later through an extension process, as was the case with the July 2001 interim meeting in Bonn, Germany between the sixth and seventh UNFCCC meetings…”

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- From the Copenhagen 101 paper: “The ingredients for a successful outcome at Copenhagen are all there. We are on track to set the architecture for a legally binding agreement in 2010 by following a two-step Danish proposal supported by President Barack Obama and finalizing an interim agreement at the meeting. [The paper explains] how actions by the Obama administration and international community have moved us toward establishing an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and why doing so will help every nation.”